National Career Readiness Certificate

 

ACT Work Keys helps ensure that individuals are ready for work—and for life. If students are going to be adequately prepared for the workforce, they need to understand the requirements for jobs they are considering. Work Keys helps students determine the skill levels required for various jobs. Students can take Work Keys assessments when they begin high school, typically in 9th grade. You can identify the appropriate coursework and training for the students based on their pre-testing scores. Work Keys post-testing can be done with students in 11th or 12th grade. The same assessments should be used in pre- and post-testing to show the direct relationship of curriculum impact and learning. The Work Keys Scale Scores are sensitive to subtle score changes and can be used to show growth over time and to provide group comparisons in outcomes measurement.

Employers across the country are overwhelmed with stacks of applications
for only a handful of open positions. Sifting through these applications is time
consuming and inefficient. Employers need a way to quickly find individuals with
essential, verifiable workplace skills. That’s why they’re asking applicants to
earn an ACT National Career Readiness Certificate™ (ACT NCRC®).
Document your skills
The ACT NCRC documents a range of essential skills that are broadly relevant across industries
and occupations, including the ability to:
• Perform basic mathematic operations relevant to the workplace
• Read and understand documents commonly found in the workplace
• Find information presented in common workplace graphics
• Set up and solve complex work-related mathematic problems
• Determine the relevance of written information to work-related tasks
• Apply information derived from graphics to work-related problems

Wanted: Applicants with documented workplace skills

• Applied Mathematics
• Locating Information
• Reading for Information
Individuals can earn the ACT NCRC by taking three ACT WorkKeys® assessments:
ACT WorkKeys assessments measure “real world” skills that
employers believe are critical to job success. Test questions
are based on situations in the everyday work world.
* The ACT JobPro database includes nearly 20,000 job profiles that identify the ACT WorkKeys skill levels required for specific jobs and groups of jobs.

Platinum

Minimum score of 6 on each of the three assessments
Examinee demonstrates foundational skills associated with
approximately 99% of jobs in the ACT JobPro database

Gold

Minimum score of 5 on each
of the three assessments
Examinee demonstrates foundational skills associated
with at least 93% of jobs in the ACT JobPro database

Silver

Minimum score of 4 on each
of the three assessments
Examinee demonstrates foundational skills associated
with at least 67% of jobs in the ACT JobPro database

Bronze

Minimum score of 3 on each
of the three assessments
Examinee demonstrates foundational skills associated
with at least 16% of jobs in the ACT JobPro database